People in the Ming Dynasty are lawless

Chapter 475: Issuing more banknotes, reducing taxes and supporting agriculture, taking multiple measures

Many people were moved to tears after listening to the storyteller's interpretation of the article written by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

Because since the establishment of the imperial court, there has never been any imperial court that was truly grateful to the people.

Is there any imperial court that truly puts the interests of the people first?

Why doesn't anyone put the interests of the people first?

This is because even if the founding emperor established a new dynasty, it was established amidst a sea of ​​blood and corpses.

The people did get some land, but they only got it because the previous owner of the land had died.

Although everyone is more motivated and can build an enlightened dynasty, it is because of the prosperity and the land is in their hands.

But there is one unavoidable aspect to the dynastic cycle.

That is, after a dynasty has been established for thirty or forty years, the land that was previously distributed will inexplicably flow into the hands of certain people.

Why is this happening?
Because the imperial court simply could not manage so many people.

Because the law is the law, no one can change it, it can only learn and develop according to this law.

The common people may have to sell the land in their hands and get a tiny amount of money in return because of a headache or fever.

The original twenty acres of land became five acres of land. If the disease occurs again, these five acres of land will have to be sold to the landlord.

The landlords became big landlords.

His original twenty acres of land became two thousand acres.

The original people became his tenants.

That's the rule.

What will those who have obtained 2,000 acres of land do?

Will he sympathize with the common people?

No, they will feel that they have drawn a clear line between themselves and ordinary people and do not belong to this class.

Therefore, people in this wealthy class will reach out for power.

In order to keep the land in their hands, these people will find agents for themselves in official circles.

Why do they seek an agent?
This is because once they find an agent, even if they still have to pay taxes, through this relationship they can pay taxes that are different from those paid by ordinary people.

You don't even have to pay taxes through this relationship.

As one thing increases, another decreases. The common people originally had less land, but they had to pay the same amount of taxes as the landlords.

They even have to pay more than those landlords who have a hundred or a thousand times more land than them.

This is the transition from the wealthy class to the powerful class.

Once the powerful class has seized power, they will want to keep the power in their hands forever and will never let go.

How to do it?

They will gather all their relatives and friends, including their elder and younger sisters-in-law, their elder and younger brothers, their third uncle and fourth uncle, around themselves.

Turn these people into a power class and form a solid fortress.

What will they do after forming a fortress?

They not only want to expand their own pie of power, but also extend their power to the economic level.

They will use their power to collude with the wealthy class and use their power to seek benefits.

As a result, the powerful class and the wealthy class are perfectly colluded together.

This has nothing to do with the people.

The people are just cattle and sheep that they constantly exploit and provide them with benefits.

So why do ordinary people have no sense of belonging to the imperial court?
That's why.

Because since ancient times, the land has not belonged to the people, but to the landlords.

If the landlords control the economy, they can control power.

Those who control power collude with the economy to form a solid interest group.

No matter how the imperial court reforms, as long as their interests are affected, they will rebound, they will resist, and they will force the imperial court to retract its policies.

This is why these people form a strong fortress.

Therefore, policies that benefit the people will definitely harm the interests of these people.

They will argue back.

If they cannot refute it, they will frame the people who made the policy.

First, discredit the person who proposed the reform and kick him out of office.

Then use the power of morality to form shackles to firmly lock up the person who proposes reform.

They thus took advantage of moral public opinion and regarded the policies proposed by people with moral flaws as a scourge, leading the people to refute them, and as a result, the reforms failed.

As the saying goes very well.

The person who wronged you knows how wronged you are better than you do.

Those who stop reforms and changes may understand better than you how good the reforms and changes will be for the people.

But reforms are not good for them, so they oppose them.

The reason why Chen Han’s reforms have achieved some results is not only because Chen Han’s reforms have achieved many results that are obvious to all.

What's more, he had the support of the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang and the equally powerful Crown Prince.

Without the two of them, Chen Han believed that any of his reform measures would fail.

If there had not been an emperor as powerful and ruthless as Zhu Yuanzhang, his reforms would have certainly been overturned by these interest groups.

The reason why he wanted to show kindness to the people was to make the common people feel proud of it.

It is to let the people know that the current reforms are very good for us because we have a part in all the reforms, all the changes and all the benefits.

We have a hand in all the credit.

Chen Han’s main focus now is to win over the common people.

Because the common people are the majority.

Because only when the common people are prosperous, that is the real prosperity.

As for the few powerful people, if you offend them, you offend them.

Those few powerful people who want to be enemies with me can be killed at will, but the common people are the only large group.

Amid cheers, Chen Han and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince commended the generals who had won the victory in the Nanyang campaign.

Lan Yu was rewarded.

Not only were each soldier who went on the southern expedition rewarded with different amounts of treasure money, but their families were also rewarded.

Chen Han will definitely not be stingy with these rewards.

His Royal Highness the Crown Prince will definitely not be stingy with these rewards.

The treasure banknote extraction companies in various places worked overtime to print the treasure banknotes.

Perhaps this is the first time in history that the issuance of additional notes has not caused opposition from everyone.

Even though so many more banknotes were issued, it’s just as His Royal Highness the Crown Prince said.

The entire Ming Dynasty now has the strength to digest these treasure banknotes.

Because now all the countries in Indochina have used Baochao as their settlement currency.

At the beginning, several countries were unwilling, such as Siam.

Even though it is located inland of the Indochina Peninsula, it only has a coastal area in the south near the Strait of Malacca.

But it has not yet been fully built into a trade transit point.

So at the beginning many people in their country opposed it and directly adopted Baochao as their own accepted currency.

But after Lan Yu conquered the two countries of Srivijaya and Majapahit.

The country of Siam immediately announced that it was willing to accept treasure notes as the settlement currency.

Even countries such as Myanmar, which are located further west, announced that they would accept Baochao as the settlement currency under the threat of the Ming Dynasty's powerful navy.

On this joyous day, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince added several more policies.

In particular, taxes in the northwest were reduced for another five years.

The people in the northwest were so happy that they didn’t know how to thank the court.

The reason why His Royal Highness was so generous to the Northwest was, of course, because he took into account that the people of the Northwest had very low harvests when the Little Ice Age first began to emerge.

The taxes they could collect were not worth worrying about. Especially now that they owned the Sado Gold Mine and Iwami Silver Mine in Japan, the Ming Dynasty did not lack the taxes in the northwest.

In fact, what the Ming Dynasty lacks mainly is food.

Therefore, in order to let the people of the Northwest relax completely, taxes had already been reduced for two years, and now another five years will be added, making a total of seven years.

All taxes were reduced, and even because large granaries were built in the south and gradually moved to the northwest, the people in the northwest were able to eat cheaper rice.

Of course, they were a little uncomfortable eating rice at first, because they mainly ate flour made from wheat.

But who has a grudge against food?

Especially the simple common people, they do not always make staple food according to the original steaming and cooking method of rice.

They still followed their simple way of eating, grinding the rice into rice flour, and then made rice noodles that were exactly the same as noodles, but with a slightly different taste.

Flour has now become a supplementary food.

The reason why he can achieve a continuous increase in grain is not because the grain production of the Ming Dynasty is increasing.

Of course this has increased to a certain extent.

Because while Chen Han was carrying out reforms, he also recruited many ordinary people who had experience in agriculture.

Train them to become experts and let them teach more ordinary people how to farm carefully.

Passing on their experience and knowledge can increase per-acre yield to a certain extent.

But this is only a temporary solution and can only lead to a slight increase in production.

The main method is still to import grain from countries such as Indochina.

That is why Chen Han emphasized that the Ming Dynasty’s navy must be extremely, extremely, extremely powerful.

Because we must firmly control all the countries in Indochina.

Through occupation, control, and hegemonic means, the countries in Indochina must be made the granaries of the Ming Dynasty.

Just like now, the policies introduced by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and Chen Han not only encourage people in the country to grow grain and purchase grain at high prices, but also provide you with subsidies.

The people in the Northwest have had their taxes reduced or exempted, so that they don't have such a heavy burden.

The most important thing is the huge allocation of resources to import food.

Chen Han and the prince were really ruthless this time.

No matter what kind of agricultural resources there are in the country, they can be supported.

As for foreign imports, policies have already been implemented.

No matter which transit station, the first thing to be purchased is grain.

The grain purchase price will definitely be three to five times higher than the local national grain purchase price.

Of course, this is not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. What Chen Han wants to do is to make the whole pie bigger and stronger.

There should not be a war among the countries in Indochina Peninsula.

War is the greatest destruction to agriculture.

So why do we need to make the navy bigger and stronger?
Why establish a naval school now?
Why should we increase the training of the navy?
Why did Lan Yu require most of the veterans with sea combat experience to return to school to train new recruits once his navy was formed?
Because the navy is so important, it is Chen Han’s absolute force in controlling the Indochina Peninsula.

Chen Han also understands that the countries in Indochina must not be in chaos.

Because if they are in chaos, it will affect the overall situation of the Ming Dynasty.

So in order to keep them from getting confused.

Chen Han has good intentions towards the countries in Indochina Peninsula.

Except for some who are really disobedient, the Ming Navy will be used to intimidate them.

For example, in the southernmost kingdoms of Srivijaya and Majapahit.

Chen Han takes a supportive attitude towards other countries in Indochina.

In particular, we will increase our support for their agriculture.

Aren’t they short of experts in growing crops?

Chen Han even promised to help them establish an agricultural school and train more agricultural experts.

We should even invite experienced experts from the Ming Dynasty to teach there.

They are even willing to spend a lot of money to buy their land and then grow crops.

Increase the price of food purchases and increase their agricultural support.

Increase exports of industrial products to them.

Allow merchants from Indochina to come to Ming Dynasty to do business and give them profits.

The trading tariffs can be tilted accordingly.

As long as you are engaged in the trade of grain, you can ship large ships to Ming Dynasty to sell grain and pay half the tax than if you sold other things.

Aren’t you envious of the fact that Ming Dynasty now has cement roads?

As long as you ask, we can help you build roads.

There is a saying that goes, if you want to be rich, build roads first.

We will repair all the roads for you so that you can transport the food out faster.

Of course there are conditions.

After I help you build the road, your king must ensure that the grain grown on tens of thousands of acres of land will be sold to the Ming Dynasty first, otherwise this deal cannot be done.

This stimulated the enthusiasm of the big families and big financial groups in Indochina Peninsula to grow and sell grain.

Chen Han even discussed it with His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

Grain merchants in Indochina who have made outstanding contributions can be rewarded by Ming officials.

Of course, the grade cannot exceed six.

And they are all idle staff.

It is a kind of honor reward.

Under such preferential policies, the countries in Indochina Peninsula understand this very well.

If I want to be rich and want to cooperate with the Ming Dynasty, then I won’t develop other things.

I specialize in growing crops.

Because they found that what the Ming Dynasty lacked was food.

After investigation, they found that the population of Ming Dynasty was too large.

But there are relatively few places where crops can be grown.

So a lot of food is needed.

And the Ming Dynasty has set such a high price, why shouldn’t I do it?

As for other things such as food, drinks, daily necessities and clothes, they were all bought from the Ming Dynasty. This is mutual benefit.

That's not what international trade does.

Trade our advantages for yours.

Chen Han wants to promote this awareness.

We even give you so many preferential policies, help you build roads, help you build canals, and help you build infrastructure.

The Ming Dynasty is willing to provide anything that is beneficial to grain production.

Even red brick technology is willing to be provided.

But the most important steel forging technology cannot be given to us yet.

But the countries in Indochina were now completely able to accept it.

Even complacent.

If the Central Plains court had always had this attitude, why would we be causing trouble in the south of the Central Plains Dynasty every day?

It would be great if we could all live together.

After all, the cultures are similar.

We are all learning the culture of the Central Plains.

Our races are actually pretty similar.

How many countries in Indochina have ancestry from the Central Plains imperial court?

We are all family, and when we live together as a family, we must cooperate and achieve win-win results...

(End of this chapter)